December 20, 2024
What’s Next After Court Upholds TikTok Ban
Last week, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit upheld the TikTok divest-or-ban bill against a constitutional challenge. The result was unsurprising given how poorly TikTok fared at September’s oral argument. The decision itself contains many intriguing legal insights at the nexus of national security and free speech. This post examines the court’s…
December 20, 2024
Did the Courts Just Nuke Environmental Review?
Description AEI fellows James W. Coleman and Adam J. White join Santi Ruiz of the Institute for Progress and Nicholas Bagley of the University of Michigan Law School to discuss two court cases that could have huge ramifications for how we build things in America.
December 19, 2024
Economics of Grid Defection III
The discussion of grid defection has reemerged with the changes in the technical capabilities of distributed resources, the growth of data center demand, and questions about whether utilities are up to the task of being nimble enough to adapt to these fast-changing circumstances. In parts I and II of this series I discussed the 2014…
December 19, 2024
Navigating India’s Digital Competition Landscape
India’s Digital Competition Bill of 2024 represents a crucial balancing act for the nation’s digital economy. The legislation aims to foster digital entrepreneurship while carefully avoiding regulatory constraints that could impede technological innovation. However, the bill is not without its criticism, and experts argue that its anti-big-business agenda and ambiguous policy prescriptions could hinder rather…
December 17, 2024
Economics of Grid Defection II
Last week I wrote about the grid defection discussion circa 2014, motivated by Elisa Wood’s webinar with Seyyed Ali Sadat and Joshua Pearce of Western Ontario University on their new paper in Solar Energy. Let’s pick up the story from 2014 and discuss the research leading up to their paper. Evolution of the Research In the ensuing…
December 16, 2024
How to Get Rid of a Tenured Professor
I am the answer to a trivia question. Who is the only person to appear in the leaked 2009 Climategate emails and in the 2016 Hillary Clinton Wikileaks emails? That’d be me. At the time, in both cases the leaks revealed efforts to censor my research and damage my career. In both cases I thought…
December 12, 2024
Economics of Grid Defection I
Yesterday Elisa Wood hosted a webinar with Seyyed Ali Sadat and Joshua Pearce of Western Ontario University, who have a new paper: The threat of economic grid defection in the US with solar photovoltaic, battery and generator hybrid systems(Solar Energy, November 2024). Grid defection occurs when electricity customers generate and store enough power locally to become fully self-sufficient…
December 12, 2024
The DOJ’s Misguided Overreach with Google Is an Opportunity for Trump
The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) proposed remedies in its antitrust case against Google read less like a serious legal prescription and more like an attempt to sabotage innovation—or perhaps the incoming Trump administration itself. By seeking to dismantle Google and force it to subsidize its competitors, the DOJ risks creating an economic disaster and hobble the development…
December 11, 2024
Why Encryption Matters More Than Ever
In a remarkable shift that underscores the critical state of digital privacy, US officials are now actively encouraging Americans to use encrypted messaging apps for their communications. This recommendation comes after the “Volt Typhoon” attacks—attributed to a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group targeting US critical infrastructure, including communications, energy, and transportation sectors—and the “Salt Typhoon” attacks….
December 6, 2024
Recombinant Modularity and Technological Change
In the past couple of weeks I’ve read two things I want to recommend that are actually deeply related. The first is Brian Potter’s excellent history of technology analysis of the evolution of the lithium ion battery. Brian’s Construction Physics newsletter is a consistently excellent treasure trove of analysis, from his series on the history of the electricity…